


Phil Coulson's Afterlife: Postcards from a Road Trip

by MurphysScribe



Series: Phil Coulson is Just Resting (and taking a road trip) [1]
Category: Field of Dreams (1989), Highlander: The Series, Leverage, Shoeless Joe, The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: Author is bad at geography, CoulsonLives, Gen, Phil Coulson's Just Resting and Taking a Road Trip, and time
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2013-12-31
Packaged: 2017-12-08 22:24:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MurphysScribe/pseuds/MurphysScribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Works in connection with "Phil Coulson's Afterlife Involves Bookstores" and "Five Things Phil Coulson Did Not Expect in Washington D.C."<br/>As to how it connects? Still working that out. I'll be poking at the whole series over the next while, playing with timing and geography.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prelude to a Dead Man's Road Trip

It was disorienting to leave the rehab center (for a number of reasons, not the least of which was realizing that he’d been in New Jersey for months and had no idea.) Phil Coulson had been officially dead for nine months and two weeks. He was still creaky, leaning on a cane, but he was cleared to drive.

They’d given him the papers for a new identity, complete with money and credit cards, ID, a car to drive. Some clothes that weren’t suits. Bill Rogers, like Coulson, was a government official, wounded in the line of duty in the Battle of New York. Ex-military, like him. With a CIA ID. He’d “died” with clearance high enough that anything less would be like un-knowing more than half of his life. It was as complete as being undercover.  
Without a mission.

And that was the most disorienting part of all. Fury’s face was impassive, or would be to someone who didn’t know him so well, and Coulson couldn’t respond to the flickers of concern he saw there, by asking what he really wanted to ask: “What do I do now?”  
Instead, he offered a smile. “So… how much vacation time do I have saved up?”

The only limit Fury placed was that the entire state of New York was off-limits, to preserve the idea that he was still dead, a necessity Fury had explained to him when Coulson was too drugged to protest. And Coulson had hazily accepted it then, and made it part of what passed for his plan as he drove out of the rehab center parking lot, getting used to the car and the idea of unencumbered time.

Of course, this meant he spent the first two hours driving almost white-knuckled with how badly he wanted an everything bagel from that place on 1st Avenue. Or a trip to Cooperstown. Better to head west then, until he felt less like disobeying orders. West and south. He told himself he was heading toward farm league baseball, toward shrimp gumbo, toward small towns and small diners.

Because Phil Coulson followed orders. Even when he was dead.


	2. Fiddler's Green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson stops at a bar in a small town. And he plays pool with a thief and a hacker.

At first, he drove neither very far nor very fast. His still-healing body could take about two hours in the car before it protested, and about four hours total for the day. First, he’d headed towards Seaside Heights, even though it was the middle of February- but the disoriented feeling of lost time and the loneliness of the off-season resort town matched his mood too well, so he moved on, heading for Philly, poking around there, then curling up for a few days in an inn somewhere in Pennsylvania Dutch country.

 When quiet stopped being what he needed, he followed a back road in Ohio, until he found himself in the center of a small town that didn’t have much more than a post office, a market, a diner and a bar, though he’d seen a motel on his way in. Diner or bar- he debated for a moment. Headed toward the neon sign of the bar. It was called Fiddler’s Green and promised Happy Hour specials and fried chicken dinner. And that sounded almost as good as the babble of noise and warmth that greeted him when he opened the door. He creaked his way down the steps leading into the bar, leaning equally hard on his cane and the railing. Maybe he’d drive tomorrow morning, just til he found somewhere picturesque to stay put for a while.

Inside the bar was warm, almost humid, the heat cranked and amplified by the bodies talking, laughing and drinking, eating fried chicken from red plastic baskets. There was music- the punctuating thump of some rock band he almost thought he knew, coming off the jukebox. Coulson did the awkward balance of cane and stool while he shrugged out of his jacket, got his body levered onto the stool.  He ordered a bottle of beer from what looked to be a local brewery. The bartender slid him a bottle, and a generous measure of whisky. And handed him change for his 5.

“Two fifty for a highball. Buck and a half for a beer. Happy hour. Looked like you needed both. Here,” said the bald bartender.

“Thanks,” said Coulson, taking a long swig of the cold beer. Usually, he didn't drink much beer outside of the height of summer (or that one op in Bangladesh), but this place was warm to the point of sticky, and the cold beer tasted pretty good. Especially followed by a sip of the burn of pretty decent bar whiskey.

 

Coulson let the conversations drift around him.

“…Famous last words!”

“You took it all wrong!”

“hated it here…”

“couldn’t care less!”

“It’s the start of another new year”

“Nothing’s dead down here… just a little tired”

 

He dug into a basket of chicken, and a voice at his elbow said “Better eat that chicken slow- full of all them little bones .” He turned to look at an older woman, dyed red hair, a seamed face and a wicked grin.

“Cordelia, you’re gettin’ in the way, girl” said the bartender.

“Pssht, manners don’t do much for me,” said the woman, and winked a heavily mascara’d eye at Coulson “Wanted to see how alive you really are,” she said… before sauntering off.  Even in the stickiness of the bar, her remark made him shiver.  He’d have discounted her as definitely weird, and probably intoxicated… if he’d never worked for SHIELD.

The chicken was good- though he did pick pretty carefully at it, at first, thrown by the odd woman.

He had his second beer with a responsible glass of water, turning down the offered whiskey.  Tried to muster up some interest in the hockey game on the TV, gave up. Levered himself off the bar stool, and caught sight of the pool table in the back of the room. Despite the crowded bar, nobody was playing. He got change from the bartender, curious how scar tissue would adapt to a game he hadn’t played since early on in his Ranger days, blowing off steam at the base. He rolled up his sleeves, racked the balls, and got his body organized, smirking at himself as he reached and stretched across the table, taking weird shots because the angles felt good on stiff muscles. He snorted. Pool as physical therapy. Who knew?

“Play you?” said a young blonde woman, peering shyly at him from under a fringe of bangs.

“I’m pretty rusty,” he said.

“Yep, that’s why I asked. I’m really good,” she said.

An African American man came up behind her. “See, girl, that’s not what you say, what you say is ‘oh, that’s ok,’ cause he was being modest. Which is what people do when they talk to people. We talked about this, Parker.” He extended his hand. “Alec Hardison, and this is Parker. Sorry she was raised in a barn,” he said, giving her a pointed side-eye.

She rolled her eyes at the man, but gave him a fond smile, then turned back to Coulson. “Do you want to play pool?” she asked.

Smothering a laugh, Coulson said yes, remembering to introduce himself as Bill Rogers.

She was good. Flexible (some kind of gymnastics training, he guessed) and making him feel even creakier by comparison. With a pang, he realized why he liked her- something about her combination of watchful and agile reminded him of Natasha. And her friend’s way of needling her with sarcasm, but looking protective like he wanted to defend her from the whole bar- reminded him of Clint. She beat him, then at a pretty visible nudge from Alec, extended a hand for him to shake.

 

It was later than Coulson intended when he checked himself into the motel he’d seen on the outskirts of town. The Golden Rim Motor Inn, with a sign proclaiming “soft water and Color TV.” But he was smiling to himself. It had been a good night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. This entire chapter is something of a song fic. Album fic, really. It started with "Little Bones" by the Tragically Hip which you can hear here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vPJ2rcYQC88 and then I decided to sneak bits in from the whole Road Apples album.
> 
> No. I do not know what Parker and Hardison are doing in Ohio at this particular point in time. But I couldn't get Coulson to Portland (Cellist!) or Boston (you have to go through New York) and I wanted this to happen. author regrets nothing. Except geography.


	3. Phil Coulson's Field of Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phil Coulson finds his way to a baseball field in Iowa. Crossover with "Field of Dreams" and/or "Shoeless Joe."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a crossover with "Shoeless Joe," the book by W.P. Kinsella and/or the movie "Field of Dreams," both of which feature a magical ballfield tucked away in Iowa.  
> Familiarity with one or both may help...
> 
> I did a little tweaking of the timeline. In the movie, which came out in 1989 or so, Karin's about 5. In my story, set in 2012, she'd be in her early 20's, give or take, and the baseball field in the corn field has become a tourist attraction of sorts, for ardent baseball fans.

Winding his way along a scenic back road, he tried to come up with ways to spend his open-ended vacation (exile, he tried not to let himself think.) He could write his memoirs. The thought made him laugh until he snorted and nearly had to pull over. “Redacted: the Phil Coulson Story.”

Maybe he’d open a coffee shop, or take one over in a tiny town somewhere, an out of town stranger swooping in and impressing the locals with his business acumen (how different could it be from running ops?) and homemade muffins. First, he’d need to learn how to make muffins. He could own a bar… no, he’d have trouble not _starting_ bar fights with drunk idiots. He could learn a new language, or brush up on one of the nine he already knew. Or hole up in a university town and get a degree in… he’d have to think about that, and see how much tuition Fury’s desire to hide him would cover.

As he daydreamed, the road wound through eastern Iowa, flanked by fields of rich earth just beginning to be covered in the green shoots of young corn. Spring. It took a moment to think of the date, and another moment to realize, spring training had started in Florida, and he didn’t know what the Mets looked like this year. He started to look for a place he might stop for the night. Fully returning from where his mind had wandered, he realized there was an awful lot of traffic on the road ahead of him, at least for a road between tiny Iowa towns. Nothing better to do than follow them.

The baseball stadium rose out between cornfields as if his idle thoughts earlier had summoned it. He parked and joined the crowd, paying much less than he expected for a ticket, hot dog, and an orange soda in a glass bottle sweating with condensation. He clambered to his seat on the bleachers. The scoreboard was one of those nice old ones with wooden numbers, and the team names were… White Sox and Brooklyn Dodgers… seeing the latter gave him a pang of _Steve Rogers_.  Reasoning that it must be one of the baseball re-creation historic teams he’d heard about, he settled in to watch.

He gave them credit for attention to historic detail- the cut of the uniforms they wore, even taking the names on the jerseys in some kind of homage to legendary players he remembered his father and grandfather talking about: Jackson, Gandil, Felsch… when the player wearing Shoeless Joe Jackson’s jersey came to bat, he selected a bat with a deep color that looked like the legendary Black Betty.

As the innings went on, Coulson got more into the game, cheering the Dodgers, who were clearly not the home team, from the amused glances thrown his way. More details: subtleties of how the catchers’ mask was created, something in the style of play that he couldn’t quite name but it reminded him…

It didn’t fall entirely into place until the seventh inning, when he hauled himself to his feet to get another soda. Abruptly stunned, he sat back down, then looked around at the rest of the cheering fans. Nope, they were all dressed like him, modern jeans and khakis and shirts, and one woman taking a picture on her phone. _He_ hadn’t fallen through a rift in time. But the players… they were actually… they couldn’t be… what was this place?

He went to get his soda. Paid a 1913 price for a bottle he was drinking nearly a century later.

“You’re new here, aren’t you?” said a young redheaded woman, grinning up at him from a smiling, freckled face.

“How could you tell?” he asked, feeling his answering rueful smile.

“Dodgers fan,” she returned, with a grin full of teasing warmth. “I’m Karin Kinsella,” she turned behind her to the woman who had to be her mother- same compact figure, freckled grinning face, framed by slightly fading red hair. “And this is my mom, Annie. This is our ball field. Well, Dad’s. He’s somewhere, we’lll introduce you.”

“So which question do you want answered first?” Annie crinkled her nose at him. “Are those the real players?” She answered herself. “Yes. How did they get here?”

“Baseball magic,” Karin filled in, obviously a story she’d told with her mother dozens of times.

“But this stadium… how did it?”

“That, we’re going to let Dad tell you. Come on,” said Karin. Coulson followed, bemused but willing.

He met Ray Kinsella, and they had time for a brief introduction before the game got intense with the bases loaded and captured their attention. Coulson watched players who had played, lived, and died before Coulson was born.

After the game, Coulson talked to them all- the players, and the Kinsellas. Sitting on the bleachers, with beers (from the Kinsellas’ fridge) he talked with Ray, Annie and Karin, and learned about the ball field that had started with a whisper and a dream turned obsession. Ray had built the entire field based on whispers, hearing “If you build it, he will come.”

“All of this,” Coulson waved a hand to take in the ball field that looked like a seasoned minor league park “started with a whisper…?”

“They feel like commands from on high—believe me, I thought I was crazy. Annie’s family was pretty much ready to come with strait jackets.”

“Or a priest,” Annie said, cuddling close to her husband. “But it turns out all right in the end, when you listen.” She tilted her head to one side. “Bill- do you need a place to stay? We have a spare room.”

He gaped at the strangers who’d told them their impossible but wonderful story and barely knew him. “That’s amazingly kind… I wouldn’t want to impose… be any trouble.”

Ray smiled fondly at the two women. “Bill, I’d give up if I were you. I think they’ve adopted you.”

 

Coulson stayed with the Kinsellas for almost a month, watching baseball games, and helping out as best he could with mowing and raking the field, touching up the paint on the outfield wall. He learned that Karin was in school studying physical therapy (“sports medicine,” she told him. “Growing up around the players rubbed off.”) She introduced him to her boyfriend, Alex, a quiet farm boy who watched both baseball and Karin’s animated chatter with an air of slightly stunned happiness. The Kinsellas told him more stories. About how the ballfield had been created. Other whispers Kinsella had heard, that led him on a road trip to find J.D. Salinger. Yes, that J.D. Salinger. In return, Coulson told them what he could, memories of New York, if not the more recent ones… even what he was cleared to say, half-truths about being a government agent at the Battle of New York seemed far too out of place here. He didn’t want to talk about alien attacks this close to a baseball field that harbored real magic.

“It was a whisper that led us to you,” Karin told him one night. Phil and Ray both nearly did a spit-take of their iced teas.  “Mom and I both got the message.”

“You never told me that,” Ray exclaimed.

“What did you hear?”

“Bring him home. It was pretty literal,” Karin said.

Coulson just laughed, shaking his head. “And you knew it meant me?”

“We saw you, looking like you were about to fall over sideways from the shock of this place. And yes. It worked out perfectly. Oh, hey, it’s game time!”

They cleared up the dinner dishes and headed to the field.

Later that night, after the fans had left and the players had gone through their door, back into the corn field,  and Ray had switched off the big lights framing the field, Phil lingered on the empty bleachers, enjoying the warm breeze rustling the corn and staring up at more stars than he’d ever seen.

Annie climbed up next to him. “Hi,” she said quietly. She offered him a bottle of beer, took a swallow of her own. For a while, they stared at the empty field.

“You’ll be back in New York. I don’t know when, but I promise you will,” Her voice cut through the darkness.

“I’m sorry…” he couldn’t read Annie’s face in the darkness, just see outlines of the snub nose and high cheekbones she shared with her daughter.

“Honor his ghosts,” she said sadly. “Karin and didn’t hear the same thing about you, when we met. That’s what I heard. Honor his ghosts. She put her hand out to cover his. “You don’t need to tell me about any of them, or anything. I know it’s private. Just wanted to let you know what I’d heard.”

It was hard to catch his breath. He looked up at the dazzling crowd of stars again, blinking eyes that stung.

“Wow… I… thank you.” He looked at her shadowy face, knowing that he didn’t have to explain any of it… not what the Battle of New York had cost him, not his first thought at her words: that everyone who haunted him was living, and that _he_ , an impostor of his own death, was the only ghost he knew.

The next afternoon, there was a baseball game… the White Sox were playing the Dodgers again.

That night, Coulson helped with the washing up after dinner, and told the Kinsellas he was planning to move on the next morning. 

When he got ready to leave, they all hugged him fiercely. “Come back soon…” Annie made him promise.

“I will. And when I do, I’m bringing a friend. A big Dodgers fan,” he told her.

Phil Coulson drove on.


	4. Seacouver... it's a Magical Place

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coulson heads to Seacouver to hear good blues music. And is both confusing to, and confused by, some people he meets there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> References explained: Seacouver is the fictional "not Vancouver, honest!" city where much of the action in Highlander: The Series takes place.  
> Highlanders in a nutshell: Immortals, can sense each other, fight with swords.
> 
> Also- from what I've seen of the second Highlander movie (which was terrible). there are references to Highlander immortals being from another planet/dimension, so why not Asgard?
> 
> Title explained: Reference to Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and "Tahiti... it's a magical place"

Coulson drove West, debating with himself. Portland? Running into a certain Cellist would throw a wrench into the "stay dead and off the radar" orders. But... [Powell's](http://www.powells.com/portland/)! Voodoo Donuts! Le Pigeon Burger! Just to be sure, he checked. She was on tour in Europe. He laughed at himself. Portland was a big enough city. What were the chances?

For almost a week, he was just another anonymous tourist, sampling local delights like Voodoo Donuts, Le Pigeon Burger, food carts, and good local beer, and buying too many books at Powell's. 

He headed towards Seacouver, chasing a memory of a blues guitarist who'd ended up there. Coulson had heard Joe Dawson playing on a few blues albums he really liked, and had seen him play live once or twice on the West Coast. Small places- Joe was the kind of musician who'd always kept his day job. 

The place was easy enough to find in downtown Seacouver. Simply, Joe's Bar. And, Coulson was in luck, there would be live music.

Wondering if they served food or if he should stop by the Vietnamese place he'd seen a few blocks over to grab dinner and risk missing the start of the set, Coulson headed into the bar.

It was a typical sort of place- dark, scarred wood, a few small tables, a stage set up at the back. Coulson was glad of his cane for support as he levered himself onto a bar stool- he'd pushed his limit for driving time to make it here tonight. 

Joe himself was behind the bar (also using a cane, Coulson noticed in a moment of wry cameraderie.) And the bar didn't serve food, but had a ready supply of takeout menus to choose from, including the aforementioned Vietnamese place which had, Joe promised, excellent sandwiches that went well with beer.

Coulson settled in, letting the simple pleasures of good beer and the promises of interesting food and good music relax him, sipping carefully on an IPA. The band started setting up their instruments. His sandwich arrived.

"Good?" Joe asked.

Coulson grinned his approval around a mouthful, swallowed, then said "I haven't had banh mi this good since I was in Saigon." And being able to enjoy it without waiting for extraction from a mission gone wrong only improved the taste.

The band began playing at the perfect volume to hear excellently rockin' Delta blues and still be able to hear himself think. More people showed up, bar regulars who called out to Joe like an old friend.

Suddenly, the band sounded warped and muffled- as a dizzying sort of buzz noise filled his senses. He dropped his sandwich, and spread his fingers onto the bartop, knuckles going white. Had he really overdone it with driving today, or strong beer without enough sandwich? 

The sensation passed abruptly, leaving him feeling slightly clammy and jittery with unused adrenaline. 

There were people staring at him. The regulars who'd just come in: a swarthy man with a ponytail, a pale man with a beak of a nose. They wore long coats and looked on alert- like agents?

Coulson nodded to both of them, then went back to his sandwich and the music, still feeling jangled but lacking the information to do anything about it. Probably just overtired, and imagining things. And maybe the local beer was stronger than it looked. He let most of his tension seep away, still keeping peripheral awareness of the long coated duo, who had both shed their coats and relaxed, having what looked like a normal bar conversation with Joe.

Almost normal. Between songs, Coulson caught a few snatches of conversation from the two down the bar "sure you've never... before? What about Paris?" "catch his name...?" "no sword... and no place to keep it..." "being paranoid."

Coulson smirked. He was probably being paranoid too. Tired after a long day, and imagining that there was any reason two Seacouver locals would be talking about him.


End file.
